Loma Grande - Colombia South 2012 Verified listing

Overview:

I was born in the village “Corralejas” in the municipality of Sotara in the department of Cauca on February 21st of 1939 in my parent’s farm that were also dedicated to coffee. When I was 21 years old I moved from my parent’s house and I built a home with Mrs. Nora Gonzalez, with whom I began to grow coffee that was a tradition in our families. We began with a small coffee plantation of 1000 trees in a little piece of land that we negotiated with my uncle and my father, to whom I helped in the coffee crop since I was 11 years old. With that little piece of land of 1000 trees we continued working with Mrs. Nora and it helped us to grow in the coffee crop and nowadays I have 27000 coffee trees of Castillo and Colombia variety and a small land with Caturra that I love and conserve because it gave me an impulse to begin my farm. I have been growing coffee for more than 50 years, since the time that we sold it in Popayan to the Federation because there weren’t close coffee buying centers. With Mrs. Nora we have 5 children that are Deyanira Guevara, Sonia Yolima, Bety Socorro, Luis Carlos and Hoover Guevara, to whom we were able to raise and educate so that they could have now their profession and also their own coffee crop. When we were already organized with the crop, thanks to the participation of many coffee farmers in contests done by the Colombia n Coffee Growers Federation and by Birmash, which also had contests and bought coffee in Soltara, the Nespresso program identified the quality of the region’s coffee and linked with us in 2005. Since then I have been buying my coffee to this program. Thanks to the technicians that supported me and even though I am alone in my farm because of my wife’s health, this year I enrolled me again in the contest of the Cup of Excellence in which I occupy the 14th place and this encourage me to continue moving forward and to stimulate to the other coffee farmers of the village to continue with quality in the coffee crop. On 2010, with the Nespresso program, I participated in the certification process for the Rainforest program that teaches us to manage our farm as entrepreneurs and I think that thanks to this I could be on the finalists of the contest, because I understood the process for excellence. At my 73 years, if God allow me, I will continue improving so that in the next contest I could be in the three fist places and will continue leaving in high position the coffee of Sotara.